University of Virginia Library

III.

The bloody work is over. The Japanese stand silent, showing scarce a sign of fatigue after their awful work. They await the command of their leader—the one who fancied he heard a woman weep. He is peering into the darkness among the trees. In and out, here and there, among the bushes he is striking with his sword. Suddenly a form dashes into the road, hesitates in front of the mass of men, trembles wildly, then turns to flee. The remorseless sword of a soldier strikes the slight form down, and they fling it back into the bush from whence it had issued. The leader is silent.

"On our way proceed shall we?" they question him; but he bids them wait, as there is no necessity for further secrecy, and after such work, truly they deserve rest.

So they lie and sleep close by the bodies of their victims, calmly and placidly, as only Japanese might.

But their leader is wakeful. He treads restlessly about the dead and sleeping forms. For weeks and months memory has slept. He has forced himself to forget all save the glory of fighting for his country; forced himself to forget that he once knew one who loved him as a son, one who loved him as a brother, and one who—ah! memory awoke that night. The cry of a woman in the distance brings him memory and remorse. He whispers a woman's name—"Ching Jara!"—and with deep tenderness asks his heart if she is safe? Will he never see her more?

His eye falls on the dead, and once more they gleam with exaltation, but only for a moment; for in his fancy he hears a woman weep, and again memory returns to Jara, little Jara—tender, gentle, loving Jara—the Chinese maiden loved so dearly, daughter of a nation he so despises.

*    *    *    

Prince Sagaritsu slept none through the night, though he flung himself restlessly on the grass. At the first pale glimmer of dawn he arose to his feet, his mind none the less full of thoughts of Jara because of the departure of the night. He lingered restlessly around the sleeping soldiers, frowning contemptuously on the dead Chinamen. When he turned toward the wood it was with a feeling of intense reluctance and fear. Behind a clump of bushes lay two forms. They were Chinamen, and by their dress and queues he recognized their rank—that of mandarin; one, an old man on his face, his arms stretched stiffly out on both sides, his long queue, braided with countless silk threads, hanging grotesquely over the front of his head; by his side a youth, his face thickly clotted with blood, and farther away—Prince Sagaritsu took a step forward and one back. The glimmering dawn grew brighter. He put his hand above his eyes and stared at a prone, disheveled object before him.

Had be been a devout Buddhist he might have called on his gods; had he been a Christian he would have whispered Christ's name in his awful agony; but he was neither—a Japanese without a religion save the religion of patriotism and of love, and he stood mute and stared with eyes that saw naught save the rigid, bloody form of Ching Jara.

Then his eyes moved painfully and slowly from her and rested on the forms of the sleeping soldiers. With a cry of intense hatred and loathing he thrust his sword into the nearest sleeper, and the next, and the next, so swiftly that the men awoke but to die. Five he killed; then, almost with one accord, the rest awoke. They found him standing over his victims with bloody sword and bloodless, fierce face, and when he saw the awakened men he stepped back, back to the side of Jara, close by the bodies of her father and brother, and, stretching his hands out, cried aloud with such piercing anguish in his voice that even the cool, merciless Japanese were stirred and stood silent, not one putting out a hand to touch him, he who was a prince of the immortal house of S———, and yet was more wretched than the lowliest serf or coolie.

And the great red sun rose higher in the east, and the trees stretched their quivering arms toward Prince Sagaritsu, and seemed to whisper—"Fool!"